HERE WE GO AGAIN: Rifle open carrier arrested in Texas (with video)

I was driving down Main Street to go get lunch and I saw a man with a rifle on his back,” Angela Arthur said.

That was the sight that sparked concern and a flurry of 911 calls to the Andrews Police Department on Wednesday afternoon.

“I was gonna stop at Allsups but then I thought he maybe was gonna go in there so I changed my mind and just went somewhere else because it’s scary,” Arthur said.

The man is Michael Keoughan, a U.S. Army veteran.

Arthur snapped the picture while Keoughan was walking down the street not far from Andrews Middle School

“He was just calmly walking,” Arthur said. “You wouldn’t think anything of it unless he didn’t have a gun.”

But moments later, the middle school was put on lockdown and Arthur said Keoughan was surrounded by police.

He was eventually arrested. Another viewer took a picture as it happened.

“The charges were disorderly conduct and displaying a weapon in a manner calculated to cause alarm,” Stephanie McDonald said. McDonald is with the Midland chapter of “Come and Take It.”

The arrest is the latest in a string of high-profile open carry arrests in Texas in which numerous members of the general public called 911 because they considered the open carry of a rifle to be threatening behavior. The Andrews Police Department has released little information about the case, but it appears that the opening part of the police stop prior to the arrest was filmed from Keoughan’s perspective.

Bob Owens is the Editor of BearingArms.com.
Bob is a graduate of roughly 400 hours of professional firearms training classes, including square range and force-on force work with handguns and carbines. He is a past volunteer instructor with Project Appleseed. He most recently received his Vehicle Close Quarters Combat Instructor certification from Centrifuge Training, and is the author of the short e-book, So You Want to Own a Gun.
He can be found on Twitter at bob_owens.
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